1.3.9-Aresnergal
Brick!Club 1.3.9. FIN JOYEUSE DE LA JOIE I like that title. Oh my god Fantine being anxious and being totally right. Also the scene is particularly horrible in the sense that they don’t realize it but they’re effectively watching their boyfriends go. FANTINE EVEN REMARKS ABOUT THE DILIGENCE STOPPING and then she only receive some “wow you don’t know anything about life” snark for her trouble. I still like Favourite. And I guess Fantine is pretty naive about a lot of stuff in life anyway in addition to being a terrible judge of character but oh well not her fault. Also they wait like that for an hour ? Wow. I guess it’s a good thing the dudes wrote a letter at all because I wonder how much time they would have just stayed there waiting. Even if the letter is kind of an equivalent of “breaking up by text” except phones don’t exist yet. Also it’s collective but that doesn’t bother me as much as the content considering Favourite’s the only one who can read. Which I guess is why they needed to create a situation where all the women were together to pull that prank. So, the letter. Well it’s pretty obvious Tholomyès wrote it, and that he doesn’t really respect any of those girls one bit. It’s really not written as something you’d give to read to someone you see as another human being with feelings and whatnot. Beginning by saying they “don’t know too much about parents” which is pretty damn insensitive (and at least Favourite has parents) and the tone of the letter seems horribly condescending. And they present themselves as if they were Biblical Characters or something. I hate those guys. About the laughing of the girls, it does seem unnatural, but on the other hand, if Fantine does fake a laugh, we don’t really know to which extent the others’s laugh is sincere or not. For starters, they all seem to wait for Favourite’s reaction before… Following her in it, essentially, and we know Favourite already have a replacement lover in sight, so I guess it’s reasonable for her to be “hey, whatever, I’ll take the actor with the weird pick-up lines”. We actually don’t know anything about Dahlia and Zéphine so that’s a mystery. Oh and yeah Hugo drop the “OH BY THE WAY FANTINE HAS A KID” bomb. I’ve seen people thinking she was pregnant, but really, Cosette’s already born because otherwise that would mean Hugo sucks at maths even more than me and I refuse to believe that, plus it says “avait un enfant” (had a child) and I’ve never read this locution in French for an unborn kid. In general when someone is pregnant you say “attendait un enfant” (waited a child, litterally) or “portait un enfant” (well, bore a child) but not “avait”. Hugo probably didn’t mention it before for the dramatic effect or something. Which in-story raises the question of knowing, considering no one mentions it, did Fantine and Tholomyès somehow managed to keep it secret from the others ? Considering Tholomyès clearly didn’t consider Fantine as wife material at all, I guess he wouldn’t want everyone to know he had a bastard child, so maybe he convinced Fantine to avoid mentioning Cosette and like, pay a discreet nanny to take care of her while they’re hanging out with the others ? Also did Tholomyès choose the real first name of Cosette, “Euphrasie” ? Because it’s a weird first name with like greek roots and it sounds a bit upper-class, and in addition Fantine never calls her that and nickname her Cosette all along anyway. I kinda can imagine that even if he didn’t really care Tholomyès may have suggested a first name because that sounded “intellectual” and stuff, while Fantine is low-class so Cosette would be more natural for her. Plus I’m assuming if you have a kid with on one side a name chosen by the dude who fled and on the other that nickname you gave it, you wouldn’t really want to use the real first name considering who it reminds you of. But I’ll stop now cause I’m beginning to anticipate on next chapter considering we haven’t been told the names yet. Oh well. Next Time : Fantine still fails at detecting untrustworthy assholes. Commentary Sarah1281 I don’t see how the others could have not known since Tholomyes and the guys seem to have been friends for ages and Fantine would have to hide a pregnancy for at least four of five months and she couldn’t just never go anywhere then or even she would notice something is up. I think Tholomyes figured it didn’t really matter since no one important would ever hear of it and if they did it wouldn’t matter, at most his parents would pay Fantine off or something. Columbina Ooo, I love the idea that Tholomyes named her! Headcanon accepted. Pilferingapples You can’t believe Hugo’s worse at maths than you? Quick, then: HOW OLD IS ENJOLRAS AT THE BARRICADE *runs cackling from the non-Euclidean age charts* And seriously, maybe Tholomyes paid for daycare workers and all, but how did he pay Fantine to be NOT VISIBLY PREGNANT? Even assuming she was one of those women who didn’t show until way late, just…ugh.HUGO YOU HAVE CONFUSED ME. AGAIN. SOME MORE. Doeskin-pantaloons (reply to Pilferingapples) You know the worst part? (Other than, like, Fantine’s boyfriend leaving her with his child and dumping her by impersonal mail?) The worst part is that I can totally believe Hugo is so oblivious about women that he hasn’t even realised Fantine hiding a pregnancy would be hard. Aresnergal (reply to Pilferingapples) BUT HE MADE VALJEAN HAIR TURN WHITE IN AN HOUR LIKE HE WAS THE MASCOT FOR A DETERGENT COMMERCIAL I DON’T THINK VICTOR HUGO CARES FOR YOUR PUNY BIOLOGY